Caviar and brandy in Council of Europe Secretary-General's office (Our comment)

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BY NAIR ALIYEV

The Armenian side, taking the bit in its mouth and whiped on by some European figures, rejoices. Yesterday, under the influence and on the direct recommendation of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjørn Jagland, who recently launched an unprecedented campaign of defaming Azerbaijan, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted resolution N14403 on the report "The Situation of Democratic Institutions in Azerbaijan." 117 people voted for the report criticizing Azerbaijan and prepared by the PACE rapporteurs on Azerbaijan Stefan Schennac and César Preda, 18 deputies voted against it.

The resolution was adopted in this half-empty PACE meeting room

The delegates urged Azerbaijan to immediately ensure the full implementation of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), without mentioning other states that are part of the Court's legal field, which do not fulfill thousands of its decisions.

But the most important thing is not even that. Recently, with the patronage of some European politicians, it has become fashionable to accuse Azerbaijan of bribing colleagues of these same politicians who accuse Baku. But what happened now?

On the results of the third round Stella Kyriakides was elected President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. She was supported by 132 PACE members in the third round. And her competitor - Emanuelis Zingeris - did not pass.

Do you know what is interesting here? It was considered (according to the Armenian side) that one of the candidates for the post of PACE president was "a client of Azerbaijan." This, for example, was stated by Naira Zohrabyan, a member of the Armenian delegation to the PACE, to the "Isor" newspaper.

Concerning the candidates nominated for the post of the PACE president, the member of the Armenian delegation stated that for the past years the representative of Cyprus Stella Kirakaidis has established herself as a "fairly balanced and impartial" parliamentarian, unlike another candidate, the representative of Lithuania, Emanuelis Zingeris.

Stella Kyriakides

"Emanuelis Zingeris is one of the ardent lobbyists of Azerbaijan and those who are involved in the" Azerbaijan laundramat," therefore we can understand the efforts of the Azerbaijani delegation to do everything so that at least until January their client Pedro Agramunt was replaced in this post by another client, Lithuanian delegate Emanuelis Zingeris," said Naira Zohrabyan.

The so-called "lobbyist of Azerbaijan" did not pass. The candidate, supported by Armenia, won. But for some reason from the European politicians we do not hear angry calls towards Yerevan.

Moreover, on this wave in PACE they proposed to cancel the reports of European deputies, whose authors are the "heroes" of certain corruption stories. The representative of the Armenian delegation to the PACE, the same Naira Zohrabyan in her speech called for expelling all European lobbyists of Azerbaijan from the Assembly. But why not expel Armenian lobbyists? And about Stella Kiriakides the Armenian representative spoke more than unambiguously, showing that it was she and only she who could satisfy Yerevan.

Naira Zohrabyan

The Armenian side actively uses the term "caviar diplomacy," implying that the Azerbaijani side allegedly bribes European diplomats and politicians. But, as I wrote exactly two years ago (such a coincidence), the term "caviar diplomacy" should have been replaced for a long time with "brandy diplomacy." And, by the way, the Armenian human rights defenders talked for a long time about the existence of the so-called "Yerevan-Europe brandy pipeline." It was about 10 years ago, and maybe even earlier. Already then, the facts of the bribery of European deputies by Armenian leaders surfaced.

Here is a quote from an article two years ago. It was published on haqqin.az, and then in "Echo of Moscow."

"It is a pity that the Azerbaijani side at that time did not actively use the term "brandy pipeline," thereby allowing the Armenian side to replicate the term "caviar diplomacy." But it's not too late, and the new scandal connected with Armenia, quite allows to do it.

And what happened? It turned out that the head of the ANC parliamentary faction stated that the Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Armenia, Gagik Harutyunyan bribed the Venice Commission and there are facts that will be presented if necessary.As the "First Informational" portal writes, this is, of course, an extremely serious statement that has not only an internal political, but, in fact, also an international context. "If it turns out that there are really reliable facts that the Venice Commission was bribed by the Armenian authorities, then this is an international scandal, since the Venice Commission, in fact, is a structure with an international reputation, and was not created only for Armenia, and works not only with Armenia."

Thorbjørn Jagland

European structures have long turned into the arena of "the battle of compromising materials." Who and how did make it possible? The answers are known. And this is again about Thorbjørn Jagland.